If I stay in the Hehuan Sect, I'll live off the pampered daughters of the Heavenly Pride Sect.

The wind seemed to have stopped.

The entire mountainside was so quiet that only Xie Buci's heavy breathing could be heard.

Mo Chengyue felt as if something was blocking his throat.

He always believed in self-preservation and that if he couldn't win, he would join the enemy.

But faced with such a tragic situation where dignity and life were sacrificed to save the lives of his fellow disciples, all his calculations seemed so pale.

"But the instant his knees touched the ground..."

Xie Buci suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze sharp as a knife.

"He did not hand over the imperial artifact."

"He directly reversed all the meridians in his body."

"It burned its remaining lifespan and detonated all the source energy in its dantian."

boom!

It was as if a muffled thunderclap exploded in everyone's minds.

Xie Buci spoke slowly and deliberately, each word dripping with emotion.

"In the instant before his self-destruction, he took out the rusty glass mace."

"With all my might, I threw it in the direction I was running away from."

"He yelled at me at the top of his lungs, his mouth full of blood."

"Live on with the Imperial Weapon! For my sake too!"

Xie Buci kowtowed heavily, his forehead striking the soil in front of the stone tablet.

That massive explosion abruptly halted the pursuit of the demon elites.

The desperate self-destruction of a Foundation Establishment cultivator cut off Gu Lie's retreat and also shattered Li Dingguo himself.

"After the demons retreated, I crawled back to that abyss like a lost soul."

Xie Buci did not look up; his voice was low and sobbing.

"There's nothing left there."

"Scorched earth, ruins, and scattered limbs."

"I shoveled away hundreds of pounds of rocks and only found this half of a Taoist robe soaked in blood."

He patted the cold stone tablet.

"Therefore, this is a cenotaph without any remains."

The past has come to an end.

The mountain wind blew again, but it couldn't dispel the heavy sense of oppression in everyone's hearts.

The entire venue was deathly silent.

Su Qingying's hand holding the sword trembled violently.

She was always aloof and proud, but at this moment her eyes were filled with extreme shock and respect.

Jin Qiaoqiao lowered her long eyelashes, concealing the moisture in the corner of her eyes.

Lin Miaoyin's eyes welled up with tears, and she hugged the pipa in her arms even tighter.

Qin Wanzhuang, on the other hand, had completely broken down.

She bit her lower lip hard, letting the tears stream down her face.

Fifty years of prejudice and anger were shattered in this moment.

She finally understood why her senior brother had become a different person after returning from the ruins.

Why does he pretend to be a despicable person who indulges in sensual pleasures and is utterly hopeless?

Why does he linger in Peach Blossom Spring every day, drinking wine and women, yet prefer to be scorned and despised by everyone on the mountain?

Because he cannot let anyone see any of his sharpness.

He wanted to use the most corrupt appearance to cultivate the ancient Golden Elixir path, which required a massive amount of Yin energy for harmonization and was prone to demonic possession at any moment.

All of this was done to deceive the demon spies lurking within the Hehuan Sect.

In order to keep the secret of that imperial artifact tightly under wraps.

So that one day, I can wield a long mace and rightfully behead Guile.

"Senior brother..."

Qin Wanzhuang burst into tears, her knees buckled, and she collapsed to her knees in the mud.

Over the decades, how many times has she drawn her sword against a man who has borne so much blood and tears?

Xie Buci, supporting himself on the tombstone, slowly stood up.

His silhouette looked extremely desolate in the morning sun.

"This isn't over yet."

He took a deep breath and completed the last piece of the puzzle of Qingquan Peak's decline.

"Back then, I survived and returned to the sect with the Emperor's Artifact."

"The former peak master of Qingquan Peak, who is also my and my senior brother's true master, has learned of the news."

Xie Buci looked up at the gloomy sky.

"Master knows that his most prized disciple has been reduced to ashes."

"That year, the demon army pressed in and invaded Zhongzhou once again."

Mo Chengyue and Wenren Ji held their breath.

They knew that what was about to be revealed was the ultimate secret of why Qingquan Peak had fallen into Yan Chenyu's hands.

"Our master did not choose to endure in silence."

A bitter smile, extremely complex, appeared on Xie Buci's lips.

"He carried his sword and volunteered to go to the most brutal and dangerous front-line war zone."

"Before he left, he told me that he, as the master, would collect the debt owed by Qingquan Peak."

A long silence followed.

Xie Buci let out a long breath.

"And then, he never came back."

"They died on the battlefield, their bodies never to be found."

The eight words landed, shattering the silence that followed.

The wind halfway up the mountain got a bit colder.

Qin Wanzhuang's knees were shoved deep into the mud, her shoulders twitched violently, and her back arched in a desperate curve.

Tears shattered on the black soil, staining the ground with dark spots.

Wenren Ji lowered his head, his disheveled hair obscuring his eyebrows and eyes.

He gripped the hilt of the mottled, broken sword tightly with both hands, his finger bones turning a pale white, and the veins on the back of his hands bulging.

Mo Chengyue stood rooted to the spot, his Adam's apple bobbing.

He always believed in prioritizing profit, bowing down to the strong, and thinking that the cultivation world was nothing but naked scheming and resource plunder.

But at this moment, his proud theory of market manipulation completely stalled.

The forbearance that has spanned fifty years before us is so pure that it cannot tolerate the slightest impurity.

It forcefully cracked his "law of survival".

The female cultivators standing at the back also fell silent.

Jin Qiaoqiao's eyes flashed with golden light, and her eyelashes trembled slightly.

She recalled the year she transformed into human form at the age of one hundred, when demonic thunder roared.

Her father, Jin Yutian, also forcibly burned the royal essence of the Peacock Clan in order to protect her.

The demon race is a land of carnage where the strong prey on the weak, yet this kind of inheritance and bond transcends life and death.

This caused a corner of her previously erected defenses to crumble, and a warm feeling welled up in her eyes.

Su Qingying's straight sword spine bent, and her fingers loosened their grip on the hilt of the Jade Spirit Sword.

She was always aloof and proud, but her eyes were now filled with respect and sorrow.

Lin Miaoyin buried her face completely behind the pipa, trying her best to suppress her sobs.

Even Yu Jianhuan, who always took pleasure in exploiting men, stiffened up.

Her beautiful face was filled with confusion; she had lived a successful life in the first half of her life through scheming and lust.

Now, however, he finds that his past worldview is being completely overturned.

The cold wind rustled through the wild grass.

Mo Chengyue pinched his palm, using the slight pain to suppress the churning blood in his chest.

He forced himself to regain his senses, his mind racing.

Those seemingly illogical pieces of information were quickly reassembled in his mind, and he immediately grasped the logical gap behind this tragic past.

He took a half step, his boot crushing a withered leaf.

His gaze was fixed on Xie Bouchi's desolate figure.

"Senior brother."

Mo Chengyue's voice was somewhat hoarse.

"Our former master and senior brother were both tough guys who dared to fight to the death, so Qingquan Peak should have been very famous."

"What exactly are the sect's higher-ups doing? How has the Clear Spring Summit fallen to such a state that even outer disciples dare to trample on it?"

He paused, then pressed for more information.

"And then there's our master. She sleeps on a soft couch all day long, accepts disciples based on her mood rather than their spiritual roots, and never cares about our lives or deaths."

"Was it intentional on the part of the higher-ups who pushed her out...?"

Mo Chengyue swallowed the extremely unpleasant word, but the sharpness in his words had already reached its limit.